A family recovered their mother’s lost wedding rings after searching through nearly a thousand bags of trash at a suburban landfill.

Susan Myers, 83, of Downingtown, lost the jewelry at Paoli Hospital, where she was taken Sept. 29 after collapsing at her husband’s funeral. Her family had removed the rings, a pearl bracelet and a 50th anniversary ring in the emergency room and placed them in a rubber glove tied with a knot.

The glove was later misplaced, then mistakenly thrown away.

Frantic searches the next day eventually led the family to Frank Dabney, the hospital employee who emptied the trash from Myers’ room. He told them their only hope was to search the landfill in Honey Brook where the hospital’s trash is taken.

“One in a million, is what I told them,” Dabney said. “I told them, ‘You only got one shot, and it’s a long shot _ a real long shot.’”

Myers’ family hired Dabney to help, and on Oct. 2 the group of six spent several hours picking through the garbage.

By afternoon, Dabney had found the glove.

“I could feel the pearls. I shook it and could hear the rings,” Dabney said.

That evening, Myers’ family gave her back her jewelry. No one told her at the time where it had been, but she knows now.

“I believe it was my dad, between heaven and earth, watching over his family, giving us something to work on rather than grieving,” said Jeff Myers, one of her sons. “Without him, this miracle never would have happened.”

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Information from: The Philadelphia Inquirer, http://www.philly.com